Imagine how much more exciting an MMA fight could be if fighters came into every round refreshed, or at least cooled down? According to Stanford University, their “rapid thermal exchange glove” can essentially do just that and much more. Biologist on the project, Craig Heller breaks down the ground breaking discovery of “rapid thermal exchange.”

“Our major heat exchange surfaces in the body are our palms of our hand, the soles of our feet , and our face” said Heller. “The reason is that these skins surfaces our under-laned by very special blood vessels. Thee device that we have, which we call rapid thermal exchange or RTX, imposes a vacuum on that surface. Then the cool blood from the heat exchange surface goes back in to the core.”

The most shocking part of the study is that not only does the cooling glove improve overall performance, but it has also shown a larger benefit than the use of illegal steroids.

“What we were able to do is compare the rate of conditioning improvement, whether strength or work capacity with our technique with what’s been published on steroids and our rates are much higher.”

Don’t most commission rules actually ban this as per that rule banning those cheater oxygen cans that a few Strikeforce fighters were using a couple years ago at the Houston show (notably King Mo and KJ Noons)

they will most likely ban this for fights, but after and before a fight should be fine as you could compare this to a sophisticated ice bath. It’s not permanent, it’s not harmful, and anyone can do it.

no where in the video does it say how long the process takes, and it would involve unstraping of the gloves and re-straping of the gloves between rounds. so no i dont think we will ever see this in any form of “short term” sports (maybe tennis. cricket and a few others that can last a day/s)